Peter Sulski, Artistic Director, violin/viola, and violist for the string quartet QX, was a member of the London Symphony Orchestra for seven years and musical animateur to their educational Discovery Programme. Whilst in England, he served on the faculty of the Royal College of Music and Trinity College of Music and Drama. He founded Chapel Royal Concerts, in Brighton, England, in 1990.
In 1999, Mr. Sulski gave his solo recital debut in Carnegie Hall and in London's Queen Elizabeth Hall in 2001. After brief stints as Head of Strings of the Edward Said National Palestinian Conservatory, Bicommunal Coordinator for Chamber Music for the Cyprus Fulbright Commission, and Principal Violist of the Cyprus Chamber Orchestra, he returned to his native Worcester.
Current positions include membership of Boston Musica Viva, Principal Violist of Camerata New England, and Artistic Directorships of the Al Kamandjati Summer and Baroque Festivals in the Middle East. As an educator, he teaches violin, viola, and chamber music at Clark University, Assumption and Anna Maria Colleges, and College of the Holy Cross. He gives an annual viola masterclass at the Dartington International Summer School and directs a summer chamber music program at the University of Exeter. In 2009 Mr. Sulski was named as Cultural Envoy to the United States Consulate in Jerusalem.
Tracy Kraus, Executive Director/flute - "Supple and riveting.... elegant and adroit playing...dazzling" (Worcester Telegram) eloquently describe the playing of "the girl with the golden flute". Ms. Kraus, Executive Director/flute of the Worcester Chamber Music Society, has performed solo and chamber music in the United States and Europe. She has been featured on several live concert/interview radio broadcasts on WICN in Worcester, MA, WGBH in Boston, and has appeared at Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall in New York.
An active chamber musician, Ms. Kraus was the founder/artistic director of the New England based Abbott Chamber Players, who had been the recipients of several grants from the Massachusetts Council of the Arts and Humanities to promote chamber music in the Worcester public schools. She performs with the Brown Bag for Kids Ensemble and the Meet the Musicians Woodwind Quartet, both sponsored by TD Banknorth. Ms. Kraus has toured the United States successfully as a soloist, featuring the music of American and Russian composers and has appeared at both the Aspen and Tanglewood festivals. She is a member of the Mendocino Music Festival Orchestra (CA) and the Massachusetts Symphony Orchestra.
Currently, Ms. Kraus is on the faculties of Assumption College, Clark University, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Maria Ferrante, soprano - “Maria Ferrante broke my heart Sunday night, “ wrote Richard Dyer of The Boston Globe of Ms. Ferrante’s performance of Madama Butterfly. Maria Ferrante has performed numerous roles in various capacities to overwhelming critical acclaim.
One of Franco Corelli's few students and winner of the Mario Lanza Voice Competition, Ms. Ferrante has performed more than 15 leading operatic roles, including Desmonda in Verdi's Othello, Mimi in Puccini's La Boheme, Violetta in Verde's La Traviata, Cio-Cio San in Puccini's Madame Butterfly, and Pamina in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte.
Equally at home on the concert stage, she has sung the leading soprano roles in Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem, Poulenc’s Gloria, Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Verdi’s Requiem and Handel’s Messiah, among many other major choral works. In recital, she has appeared with pianists Gilbert Kalish and Lincoln Mayorga, with clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, with violinist Arnold Steinhardt of the Guarneri Quartet, and with Robert J. Lurtsema of WGBH, as well as many others. Composers Sheldon Harnick (who wrote Fiddler on the Roof), Arnold Black, Seymour Barab have collaborated in performance with her.
Performances include Respighi’s Il Tramonto with the New England String Ensemble, an appearance with the New York City Chamber Ensemble with guitar virtuoso Benjamin Verdery, and Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas Brasilieras No. 5 with the Boston Ballet, in Symphony Space in New York City and with Chamber Music of New England with First Prize Tchaikovsky winner, Sergey Antonov. She has made numerous orchestral appearances throughout the country, next to be heard as Madama Butterfly with the Florida Northwest Symphony as well as concert artist with The Mohawk Trail Concerts and recitalist at Mercyhurst College on Lake Erie.
Krista Buckland Reisner, violin - "...Excellent left hand.." (Toronto Star), "...lovely tonal bloom..." (LeDROIT) are words that describe the performances of violinist Krista Reisner. A musician of great diversity, she has toured across her native Canada as a recitalist, performed concertos in cities ranging from New York City to St. John's, Newfoundland, traveled to New Zealand with Canada's baroque group Arcadia and has created mullti-media works for herself involving dance and movement. She was Principal Second Violin of the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra and has been a member of the Arizona Opera and Santa Fe Opera Orchestras. In Boston, Krista is Concertmaster of Opera Boston and the Principal Second of Boston Modern Orchestra Project. She is also a tenured member of the Handel and Haydn Society and Boston Baroque period orchestras. She is one of Boston's leading new music violinists, working closely with many of Boston's leading composers including Thomas Lee, Theodore Antinou and appears regularly with the Fromm Players, and Hyperprism.
Amy Rawstron, violin, is an active freelance violinist performing with such musical organizations as the Boston Opera Company, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Opera New England, New Hampshire Symphony, Boston Classical Orchestra, Boston Pops Esplenade Orchestra, Summer Music at Harkness Park, New Hampshire Summer Music Festival, Ocean State Chamber Orchestra, Providence Opera Company and the Rhode Island Philharmonic. She has also appeared at the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music, Kniesel Hall, Tanglewood, Aspen Music Festival, The Meadowmount School, the National Repertory Orchestra and Spoleto Music Festival.
Rohan Gregory, violin, has cultivated a wide-ranging expertise in chamber music, new music and world music. He has played with the Apple Hill Chamber Players, the Ancora Ensemble and award-winning Boccherini Ensemble and was also a founding member for ten years of the Arden String Quartet, performing new music concerts in New York, Boston, Amsterdam and St. Petersburg, Russia. On the world music scene, Rohan has toured extensively. His travels have taken him to Europe with the Klezmatics, to Thailand with multi-ethnic flute player Abbie Rabinowitz, to India with the Indo-jazz group Natraj and to the U.S. west coast with Sophia Bilides Greek Folk Ensemble. Locally, Rohan is a member of the New England String Ensemble and Boston Modern Orchestra Project. He also coaches chamber music for the Walnut Hill School and the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra
Mark Berger , resident composer/violist, is very active in the Boston freelance scene and has performed with many of Boston’s finest ensembles, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops Esplanade, Emmanuel Music, Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Boston Lyric Opera. An avid chamber musician, he is a member of Music at Eden’s Edge, has a duo partnership “The Two Composers” with pianist/composer Ketty Nez, and has been a guest artist with the Lydian String Quartet. Mark has performed at summer festivals such as Kneisel Hall and Tanglewood, where he was a member of the New Fromm Players, new music ensemble-in-residence.
Also a gifted composer, Mark’s works have been presented locally by the New York New Music Ensemble, Dinosaur Annex, ALEA III, Xanthos Ensemble, Music at Eden’s Edge, QX, and the Lydian String Quartet, as well as nationally and internationally by the the Third Coast Percussion Quartet, Ensemble Permutaciones (Mexico) and the Hellenic Ensemble of Contemporary Music (Greece). Mark has been awarded by ASCAP and he has received grants from NEFA and the Brannen Cooper Fund. Mark is currently on the music faculty at Clark University, UMass Lowell and Middlesex Community College.
David Russell, cello, Hailed as a “superb cellist” in the Boston Globe, David Russell maintains a vigorous schedule both as soloist and as collaborator in the U.S. and Europe. He was appointed to the teaching faculty of Wellesley College in 2005 and currently serves as Visiting Assistant Professor. He served as Assistant Principal 'cello with the Tulsa Philharmonic and on the teaching faculty of Oklahoma City University from 2001 to 2003. As a member of the Grammy-nominated Eaken Trio, formerly in residence at Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA, he has toured extensively in France, Germany, Italy and England. A strong advocate and performer of new music, Mr. Russell has performed with such ensembles as Phantom Arts Ensemble for American Music, Dinosaur Annex, Collage New Music, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Music on the Edge, AUROS Group for New Music, Firebird Ensemble, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players, and the Fromm Foundation Players at Harvard. He is a founding member of Furious Band, an ensemble devoted to the exploration and performance of works by young composers. Furious Band was the 2000 contemporary ensemble in residence at the Aspen Summer Music Festival.
Recent projects include the premieres of a new cello concerto by Laurie San Martin, a new concerto for quintet and orchestra by Derek Hurst with the Firebird Ensemble and Boston Modern Orchestra Project, new works for solo cello by Sam Nichols, Roger Zahab and Andrew Rindfleisch, a new work for cello and piano by Eric Moe, residencies at the University of California-Davis and the Icicle Creek Center for Chamber Music and, with Firebird, recordings of works by Lee Hyla and Tamar Diesendruck. Recent past projects included the premiere of Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon’s chamber opera Comala at the Bellas Artes in Mexico City, solo performances at Miller Theater at Columbia University, the Boston Conservatory, and the American Academy in Rome, U.S. premieres of works for solo cello by Harold Meltzer and Judith Weir, recordings of new works by Eric Moe, Eric Chasalow, Laurie San Martin, Allen Anderson and Edward Knight, masterclasses at the University of California-Davis, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the University of Alaska-Fairbanks and residencies at the University of South Carolina-Columbia and Tufts University. He teaches at the Cello Seminar, a summer program for study of contemporary cello music associated with Music from Salem and developed by Rhonda Rider. He has recorded for the Albany Records, New World Records and Composers Recordings labels.
Ian Watson , harpsichord/piano, is an English musician of exceptional artistry, and a prominent figure at the highest levels of the international music scene. Ian Watson played an important role in the British Baroque revival that brought renowned orchestras and choirs into prominence, such as the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, English Chamber Orchestra, English Baroque Soloists, Monteverdi Choir and The Sixteen-all with whom Ian has performed as soloist and director. Highlights include conducting Bach's B minor Mass at the Rheingau Festival with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Orchestra and Chorus, premiere concerts at the newly refurbished Chiitelet Theater in Paris with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and the first London performance in fifty years of Handel's Deborah with Collegium Musicum of London.
In 2003, Ian inaugurated the first highly successful St. Paul's Music Festival in Worcester, Massachusetts. Most recently, he has performed with the English Baroque Soloists and Monteverdi Choir as assistant conductor/soloist for Sir John Eliot Gardiner in Rome, Berlin, Amsterdam, and London. As the Artistic Director of Arcadia Players and Chorus, one of New England's finest period-instrument ensembles, Worcester Collegium Chamber Orchestra, and Director of Music at St. Paul's Cathedral, Ian is committed to enriching the cultural life of Worcester.
William Ness , piano and organist, is currently the Minister of Music and Arts at First Baptist Church, an American Baptist Church, of Worcester, Massachusetts where he conducts three singing choirs and two bell choirs. He has two degrees from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and has done further study at the University of Iowa. His organ teachers have been Jennie Satre, Robert Speed, Robert Clark, Robert Glasgow, and Delbert Disselhorst. While at the University of Michigan he won the Graduate Concerto Competition in 1971. Mr. Ness taught at Andrews University from 1979 to 1982 as a sabbatical replacement for C. Warren Becker. Following that position he and his wife were Co-Directors of Music at First Presbyterian Church, Ottumwa, Iowa where they chaired the National Undergraduate Organ Competition.
Upon moving to Massachusetts he assumed the position of Minister of Music at The College Church at Atlantic Union College, South Lancaster in fall 1987. Other churches he served during this time were Village Congregational of Whitinsville and First Baptist of Lexington. He remained at The College Church until January of 2001 when he became Minister of Music & Arts at First Baptist Church of Worcester. While at the College Church he developed five vocal choirs and two bell choirs.
Mr. Ness has performed on Iowa Public Television, 3ABN, National Public Radio as well as in Australia, Europe and the Caribbean. As an accompanist he has performed with many choral organizations. During 2003-2004 he completed a three recital series of 20th century organ music at First Baptist of Worcester and also performed Howard Hanson’s Concerto for Organ and Harp with the Atlantic Union College Orchestra under the direction of Stephen Tucker. William is a part of Synergy - a flute, harp and organ trio. Together they have performed several commissioned works by and for this combination by composers Gary Shocker, Lynn Trapp, and Peter Matthews. Mr. Ness appears on the recent 2CD set of Great Organs of Worcester. He teaches organ at the Pakachoag Music School of Greater Worcester.
